The Still Life, Design for Living drawings—there are sixteen in all—are a slow visual and emotional response to a new environment. Absorbing an unfamiliar landscape after a major move, recreating my material existence, tending to all matters practical, began eventually to appear in new work as what I came to think of as Still Life. Fragments culled from domicile, garden, highway, and multifarious urban visual stimuli, appear in these drawings as the main and supporting subjects.

These drawings, along with all my work mark and document the passage of my life. I sometimes think of drawings as prayers, as in Still Life, Design for Living (Marjorie) each of these drawings conjures a particular person to participate in the tableau of a still life and in my design for living.

As a whole, these drawings are dedicated to the memory of the artist Beuford Delaney. During my time of transition when the most I could manage in the studio was the preparation of grounds for work to come, I stumbled on a catalog of his paintings. The contemplation of his work served as inspiration, support, and hope.

Still Life, Design for Living are acrylic and mixed media on tracing vellum. They extend my idea of producing works composed of multiples of four.